How Do I Forgive This? Poem by Gert Strydom

From the day of our wedding years back
you do accuse me that I do flirt (woo other women)
and nothing can now over-bridge these lies:
you think that you can say and do just as you will.
At the Jet department-store where I buy clothes for Raleigh
you want a black eye-pencil for your make-up,
the teller jokes (wants to steal it)where it lies on the counter.
I think about my cars that had been stolen when we walk out.
At the door my parcels are searched by a black lady.
She, a security-guard, does not want to let go of that pencil
and decently I laugh and wonder if I rather should have cursed.
You accuse me that I did flirt and it is going to cost our marriage.
You my only sweetheart-wife do not carry my name
and this thing sits raw in me, a white Afrikaner-man.

[Ps. You laugh this off as if there is no value to how I feel
and I wonder what you do really mean with your words and acts? ]